


loving you was easy, it was you leaving that scarred

by TurntechLoveThis (angelcult)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Admissions Of Guilt, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Detective Dirk Strider, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Internal Conflict, M/M, Minor Character Death, Morally Ambiguous Character, Murder, POV Alternating, Past Attempted Murder, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25772416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelcult/pseuds/TurntechLoveThis
Summary: The faults of love are going to be the demise of Dirk’s pride, especially as he sits across from the man who singlehandedly ruined everything.
Relationships: John Crocker/Dirk Strider
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	loving you was easy, it was you leaving that scarred

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from “Time Moves Slow” by BADBADNOTGOOD and I definitely recommend giving it a listen while you read!

The festering of guilt and the manifestation of evil would typically be enough to drive men mad, when they have hearts beating and a soul, they tend to bend and break the moment pressure is put upon them.

That’s what Dirk’s found out as a detective.

No one is safe from the weight of guilt, from the heavy and blind eyes of justice.

Or so he believed.

In fact, he was so certain of it, of this ideal that one would confess to a crime after being shown indisputable proof, that nothing could really prepare him for.. this one.

He’d call him a man, but he’s more certain that he’s actually some sort of demon hidden in a human skin, with this catty smile and angelic blue eyes, he’s a conundrum, a dilemma- he’s guilty.

Dirk knows that he is guilty, _everyone knows_ that he is guilty and yet, there’s no proof of his guilt.

The heavy weight of guilt does not rest on John Crocker’s shoulders, he believes that he is a pillar of innocence.

Or rather, he believes that innocence is a state of mind, and as long as his state of mind says that he’s not guilty, he isn’t.

It grates on Dirk's mind, his very being is overwhelmed and overworked when it comes to him and his misplaced ideology of _innocence._

“We’re recording,” Dirk states as he places a small device in the center of the long metal table, a reasonable distance away from himself but far enough from John that he’d have to reach for it if he attempted to grab at it.

He wasn’t handcuffed or chained, he was wearing a deep blue button-up long-sleeved shirt that was tucked into high-waisted black dress pants, his blue eyes were glowing under the bright lights.

If the Devil was real, he was right in front of him, seemingly aloof and pretending to be innocent.

Dirk found himself wishing that Terezi was here, she was damn near unshakable. 

“We’ll start simple. What’s your name and age?”

“John Crocker, I’m twenty-seven years old.”

“The date?”

“August twelfth, twenty-twenty.”

“Where were you the night of the murder of Jade and Jake English?”

“Home. My cousin Jane was with me as well, we were staying in because of the curfew due to the sudden rash of murders.”

Dirk’s eyes narrowed and John smiled, tilting his head. “Every moment you waste on me is another that that dastardly killer gets away with! Wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

“No, we wouldn’t Mr. Crocker, but due to your connection with every one of the deceased, we have reason to consider you a suspect.”

“I know how it looks, believe me, Detective, but do you honestly think I’d have reason or motivation to hurt those people?”

“I don’t know, do you?”

John frowned, his eyebrows drawing in and his lips parting just so, like he was shocked and _offended_ that Dirk would ever assume he could have done the crimes.

“No.”

They fell quiet, and Dirk nodded, reaching down on the floor beside himself to grab the manila envelope, placing it down on the table before opening it and grabbing a photo.

“Jade English, aged nineteen, found with her head bashed in with a hammer, she died from suffocation caused by having.. ink.. poured down her throat.”

He slid the photo across the table with two fingers, turning it towards John and lightly tapped them.

John’s pupils dilated and he looked away, like he was sick, his lips curling into a deep frown as he inhaled sharply.

Dirk continued speaking as if he hadn’t noticed his reaction.

“Jake English, aged twenty, died from blood loss caused by lacerations across his stomach, chest, legs, and having his tongue removed.”

He slid a photo across the table and John’s eyes darted to it before looking away, he was growing pale.

His eyes looked pained in a perfunctory way, as if he was sad on the surface but unable to feel it any deeper.

“Both were found in a clearing, bodies arranged strangely and wiped clean, in a way that was thought to be a nod to the Black Dahlia case.”

“One more.” Dirk said and paused, lips pursing together tightly as he slid the picture to John.

“Dave Strider, aged seventeen, died from a near decapitation, unlike with the others there were signs of a struggle, but his body was also cleaned of any possible remaining evidence.”

John looked down at the picture and only then did Dirk speak again.

“Thought to be a nod to an attempt on my life, also at the age of seventeen.”

John’s eyes found Dirk’s neck, the deep scar that went around his neck, like an attempted decapitation.

His eyes were wet with tears, not yet crying but his eyelashes were stuck together in wet clumps, he was a beautiful cryer.

John Crocker was the romanticization of death and the demise of Hollywood, his eyes were renaissance art and his guilt must weigh heavy, but he simply refuses to crack under the pressure.

“Dirk,” He doesn’t want him to say his name like that, like he’s _burdened_ by it, as if saying his name is akin to an apology, to a kiss, to a shotgun proposal.

It’s none of those things.

John Crocker is perhaps a demon, sometimes an angel, and always the one Dirk loves, as justice is cruel, but the heart is crueler.

“Interview over.”

Dirk reached over and clicked ‘stop’ on the recorder, sunburnt eyes meeting sea-blue.

“It’s over.”

“I’m sorry.” He starts and there’s a _look_ in Dirk’s eyes, like he wants to hurt him, or kill him, or _fuck him._

John’s voice drops to a whisper, brows furrowed, he knows there’s someone listening to them behind that two-way mirror.

“I know what your brother meant to you, and I would have _never, ever_ taken him from you.” The hurt in his eyes looks deeper now. “You know how I feel about you..”

Dirk stops listening, as if he could have forced himself to keep listening any further, he knows that John is just trying to play his emotions, to trick him into _trusting_ him, or god forbid, admitting to his feelings.

“John-“

“And you know that I would never have done anything like that to hurt you, Dirk-“

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Go. You’re being dismissed.”

John’s eyes expressed the heaviness he was feeling. He got up, pushing his chair in, carefully avoided the pictures scattered around the table as he walked past.

He paused beside Dirk, resting his hand against his shoulder, squeezing in a way meant to be comforting, but only felt like a reminder of all the things that Dirk didn’t have.

“My house.. is always open to you.”

“Leave.”

The sound of the door closing as John finally obeys his command is like a death toll.

He hates John Crocker, hates him more than anything.

* * *

_  
They met in high school, and they were destined to be sweethearts. John was a year older, but Dirk was advanced and in all of his classes. _

_John saw him, and his beauty and mind stole into his heart without his consent. Dark tan skin and white hair, amber eyes that looked like pieces of the sun when the light hit them, freckles that scattered his skin like fallen stars._

_He was so smart, quicker than a whip and he always challenged John with his intellect, making him fight for it, they begrudgingly handed the other the well deserved respect that they’d earned._

_Dirk’s mind was like a rarity, something that could not be replaced._

_Replicated, perhaps, but never replaced._

_It was he and his three brothers. Derek, Ambrose, Dirk and the youngest— Dave._

_Dirk was Dave’s self appointed keeper, never letting him too far out of his watchful eye and keeping an ear out, they were inseparable._

* * *

Or so John had thought, but as Dirk sits in his living room, staring out of the window watching the rain fall angrily into the glass, listening to the distant rumble of thunder and watching the flashes of lightning crack across the sky, he knows it’s possible to separate a guardian angel from his charge.

He’s beautiful even when he’s mourning.

“Dirk,”

His eyes fall onto the other with unabashed pain, and _longing_ and anger. Dirk’s heart has always led him, he was always seeking to be saved from himself, from the burdens he rested upon his own shoulders. 

John wanted to save him, but the game they were playing now was so hard to give up. 

“The rain is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?”

Dirk closed his eyes and tears ran down his cheeks, how long had he been holding them back? 

“Did you do it?”

“What?”

“Did you..” His voice cracked and John could see it now, through his hopelessly logical mind. 

That had always been the difference between them, John was also so _cold_ and _logical._

“Did you kill my brother?”

“Will you arrest me based on what I say?”

He knows the answer by the way Dirk’s tears get heavier and he hides his face in his hands, the way he sobs like _he’s_ the one dying, like _he’s_ dead.

“Yes.” John whispered. He’s already destroyed so much with his game, perhaps he can forfeit his innocence for Dirk.

Always for _Dirk._

* * *

_They were dissecting things for anatomy later, but John was more interested in this praying mantis he’d caught as they walked around outside._

_It crawled over his palm and wrist, curious about its newfound and living perch, but John was more curious about if they could feel pain._

_Most living things could._

_He pulled one of its legs off._

_It hissed and snapped at him, pain and anger. Such human emotions found in an insect, he went to pull off another when a hand landed on his shoulder._

_“John,” That deep and blank voice, paired with those sunburnt eyes were enough to stop him as Dirk gently gathered the angry creature from his hands, uncaring that it attacked him in its angered and pained confusion._

_He didn’t even flinch, just gave it shelter in a bush, smiling softly to himself when it scuttled to safety._

_“Why’d you help it? It’ll die now.”_

_“Praying mantis can regrow their limbs during molts. It won’t die, it’ll just be more cautious.”_

_John thinks that he wanted to exterminate life so much that only Dirk could show him the beauty of it._

* * *

  
Dirk moans like he’s crying with his soul, and tears still stain his cheeks, but now they’re flushed a ruddy red with pleasure, sunburnt eyes swallowed up by the black of his pupils, like a dead sun.

John pulls his hips up higher and pushes in deeper, he makes Dirk cry out and arch his back, nails scratching and digging into his skin like he’s trying to wound him, like he wants to pull his heart from his body and make him suffer.

Dirk was never made for that though, he didn’t know how to let others suffer unless he could truly convince himself that they were guilty.

John kisses him and licks across his tongue and the familiar piercing against his teeth, swallowing down Dirk’s whimpers and his cries, his _anger._

Dirk’s nails are drawing blood, he’s pushing John like he wants him off while he wraps his legs tighter around his waist. 

“Dirk-“

“I hate you.” His words hurt, they burn into John like acid, like holy water.

Dirk wants to kill the demon.

He wants _his_ John. The one who pulled the limbs off of praying mantises and ruffled Dave’s hair and sparred with his brothers.

Surely, such an unholy thing couldn’t have kept up the facade for so long, right?

He wants to believe that he’s wrong.

John confessed, however, he confessed to killing his brother and now he’s fucking him into the couch while it thunderstorms outside.

He cries with the thunder, his back arches with the lightning, his eyes water like the rain.

“You don’t mean that.” John pants out, blue eyes hazy with pleasure and something else-something pained.

Not perfunctory, _real_ pain.

“I-I do-“ Dirk’s voice melts away with a loud shout, John’s getting rougher and it’s hurting in a way that Dirk feels like he deserves.

For the English kids, for himself, for _Dave._

He’s so vulnerable right now, John could kill him, he could finish what was started ten years ago by some faceless criminal. 

Part of Dirk hopes he does, that John would tear his throat open, to free him of a dilemma that they both know the answer to.

“I love you.” It hurts so much when John says it, like he doesn’t even know that _he_ is the one hurting Dirk.

It doesn’t stop him from cumming at the sound of the words, though, it doesn’t stop him from clinging to John and letting him finish inside.

It doesn’t stop a lot of things.

It’s still raining outside.

Dave is still dead.

John is still guilty. 


End file.
